American winter

Calamity awaits the once-great country

I was wrong. Before last year’s US presidential election I said that it wasn’t the most consequential in a generation (or such longer period offered by breathless commentators); it would be no more so that the elections of 2016 (which could have done for Trump altogether) or 2020 (a weaker argument there…). A new Trump administration would soon sink into chaos and drift - a bit like Boris Johnson’s British government following the December 2019 election. In fact the new US administration is revolutionary; it is changing things as radically as the Roosevelt presidency of 1933. The election of Kamala Harris would have stopped this, and probably done for Trump for good - though who knows what would have been cooked up for 2024.

Even after the election I compared the new regime to Mr Johnson’s, though I also offered Hitler’s 1933 ascension into the chancellery as a comparison. This latter is now looking the stronger parallel. Hitler was no details man, but set a vision in which groups of underlings competed with each other to destroy the old regime, with varying levels of competence, though with more violence than the current US regime has shown so far. The chaos that I predicted has indeed come to pass, but it has not stopped the destruction. And the checks to presidential power that I had thought might come into play seem to have been neutralised. Congress has been bypassed, and the Republican majorities seem to be shrugging this off, and offering little challenge. The courts have been stacked in the new regime’s favour - as evidenced by the shocking extension to presidential immunity made by the Supreme Court last year. A doctrine of unchecked presidential authority is taking hold. Even states’ power, a cornerstone of the Republican anti-establishment rhetoric until now, is being undermined. Mr Trump’s underlings, up to the level of Vice President, openly talk of ignoring court rulings anyway; it isn’t clear what could stop them. It will be no surprise if moves are made to further undermine the democratic standards of elections.

Pretty much all of this was predicted before the election, with plenty of evidential support. While I was broadly right on the administration’s economic policies, unlike many who really should have known better, I failed to understand what was coming for the reordering of the state itself. Not all that is happening is necessarily bad. Many aspects of the state work poorly, and sometimes shock treatment - “move fast and break things”- is the best way to achieve radical change. The problem is I have no confidence in the good faith or competence of this revolution’s leaders. This is the contrast with Roosevelt. They are leading their country to a bad place.

It starts with a complete failure to understand how a modern economy works. The country’s large trade deficit is not a sign of failure - of being ripped-off by foreigners - but a sign of economic success. As Americans become more wealthy, demand for non-tradable goods and especially services grows; to make room for extra supply of these things the country must import more tradable goods and export less. This is easy to fund as the country is attractive to foreign capital. It follows that trying to reverse this, by balancing trade and bringing more manufacturing “home”, the gains will be reversed. America becomes poorer. It’s worse than that, because the government is trying to put the toothpaste back into the tube, and its policies, notably punitive tariffs, are likely to to cause economic harm with doing much corresponding good. Whether this is leading to recession is an open question, but inflation and stagnation are a stronger bet. It is not what so many Trump voters thought they were going to get.

Then there is foreign relations, though this may be less of a concern to most voters. The abrupt tearing up of treaties and promises is destroying trust, which will ultimately make things harder for America. Bullying works by picking weaker subjects off; it doesn’t work when you are trying to bully the whole world. The regime might achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine, and at least a temporary halt to the killing. But its bullying of Ukraine while soft-pedalling Russia boads ill for longer term results. Likewise the regime is giving succour to the Israeli hard right, whose ultimate aim is ethnic cleansing. That does not bode well for long term peace. It will also ultimately undermine dealing with other Middle Eastern regimes. In the Far East things are unclear. The Trump regime is full of China hawks, but Trump himself is more ambiguous. The China hawks are useful for the securing of better relations with Russia, something Mr Trump clearly wants. But he can discard them when it comes to Taiwan, and China may get its opportunity to make the island into its control, which would be a disaster for America.

And what of Americans welfare (pensions and healthcare) and government services? These are being run down, and run by Trump loyalists rather than people with competence. These will surely be weakened. Corruption is likely to take hold.

Meanwhile Mr Trump has a solid base of fanatical support. These are a combination of frustrated conservatives who love that their side is doling it out to the hated liberals, and crooks and chancers who spy opportunities to turn a profit. They will not acknowledge failure, blaming things that go wrong on an array of conspiracies and usual suspects. There seem to be enough of them to keep the regime going. Others will be afraid to speak out or act out of line. Freedom of speech may have been a conservative rallying cry, but, likes states’ rights and rule of law, they don’t mean it.

The question now is whether things will go badly or very badly. In the latter case democracy is subverted and the current regime retains and extends power beyond Trump’s four year term. A successor is found - and there are clearly a number of candidates. I don’t think this is likely. The regime will increasingly be hobbled by infighting, made more vicious by a record of failure. Mr Trump’s charisma will start to fail. Opposition will cling on in many states, and even the judiciary might draw a line.

But a winter approaches. This is not a good time to be an American.